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Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

codespeak.dev

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Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#81

Post by newsoftheday »

kleiba wrote: post #16

I cannot read light on black. I don't know, maybe it's a condition, or simply just part of getting old. But my eyes physically hurt, and when I look up from reading a light-on-black screen, even when I looked at only for a short moment, my eyes need seconds to adjust again. I know dark mode is really popular with the youngens but I regularly have to reach for reader mode for dark web pages, or else I simply cannot st…

Same for me, has been my whole life. I complain about it all the time. It's well documented that people can read black on light far better and with less eye strain than light on black; yet there seems to be a whole generation of developers determined to force us all to try and read it. Even the media sites like Netflix, Prime, etc. force it. At least Tubi's is somewhat more readable.

Sometimes a site will include a button or other UI element to choose a light theme but I find it odd that so many sites which are presumed to be designed by technically competent people, completely ignore accessibility concerns.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#82

Post by awkwardpotato »

ramon156 wrote: post #76
lich_king wrote: post #5

We built LLMs so that you can express your ideas in English and no longer need to code. Also, English is really too verbose and imprecise for coding, so we developed a programming language you can use instead. Now, this gives me a business idea: are you tired of using CodeSpeak? Just explain your idea to our product in English and we'll generate CodeSpeak for you.

I'm really glad random HN commenters know it better than someone that built a language that has been used in thousands of products.

Standard appeal to accomplishment, past success does not guarantee future success... especially on this joke comment

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#85

Post by intrasight »

the_duke wrote: post #42
davedx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My process has organically evolved towards something similar but less strictly defined: - I bootstrap AGENTS.md with my basic way of working and occasionally one or two project specific pieces - I then write a DESIGN.md. How detailed or well specified it is varies from project to project: the other day I wrote a very complete DESIGN.md for a time tracking, invoice management and accounting system I wanted for my free…

I think many have adopted "spec driven development" in the way you describe. I found it works very well in once-off scenarios, but the specs often drift from the implementation. Even if you let the model update the spec at the end, the next few work items will make parts of it obsolete. Maybe that's exactly the goal that "codespeak" is trying to solve, but I'm skeptical this will work well without more formal specifi…

> specs often drift from the implementation > Maybe that's exactly the goal that "codespeak" is trying to solve

Yes and yes. I think it's an important direction in software engineering. It's something that people were trying to do a couple decades ago but agentic implementation of the spec makes it much more practical.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#86

Post by allthetime »

rebolek wrote: post #78
davedx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My process has organically evolved towards something similar but less strictly defined: - I bootstrap AGENTS.md with my basic way of working and occasionally one or two project specific pieces - I then write a DESIGN.md. How detailed or well specified it is varies from project to project: the other day I wrote a very complete DESIGN.md for a time tracking, invoice management and accounting system I wanted for my free…

AGENTS.md is nice but I still need to remind models that it exists and they should read it and not reinvent the wheel every time.

There should be a setting to include specific files in every prompt/context. I’m using zed and when you fire up an agent / chat it explicitly states that the file(s) are included.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#87

Post by newsoftheday »

tasuki wrote: post #44
roxolotl wrote: post #7

This doesn't seem particularly formal. I still remain unconvinced reducing is really going to be valuable. Code obviously is as formal as it gets but as you trend away from that you quickly introduce problems that arise from lack of formality. I could see a world in which we're all just writing tests in the form of something like Gherkin though.

> I could see a world in which we're all just writing tests in the form of something like Gherkin though. Yes, and the implementation... no one actually cares about that. This would be a good outcome in my view. What I see is people letting LLMs "fill in the tests", whereas I'd rather tests be the only thing humans write.

> Yes, and the implementation... no one actually cares about that.

There has been a profession in place for many decades that specifically addresses that...Software Engineering.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#88

Post by intrasight »

newsoftheday wrote: post #77
abreslav wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The limitation seems to be that you can't modify the code yourself if you want the spec to reflect it Eventually, we'll end up in a world where humans don't need to touch code, but we are not there yet. We are looking into ways to "catch up" the specs with whatever changes happen in the code not through CodeSpeak (agents or manual changes or whatever). It's an interesting exercise. In the case of agents, it's very…

> Eventually, we'll end up in a world where humans don't need to touch code, but we are not there yet. Will we though? Wouldn't AI need to reach a stage where it is a tool, like a compiler, which is 100% deterministic?

We will and soon because it does not have to be deterministic like a compiler. It only has to pass all tests.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#89

Post by newsoftheday »

Cpoll wrote: post #36

> The spec is the source of truth This feels wrong, as the spec doesn't consistently generate the same output. But upon reflection, "source of truth" already refers to knowledge and intent, not machine code.

> not machine code

Actually, computers, being machines, do equate machine code and source of truth.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#90

Post by allthetime »

ramon156 wrote: post #76
lich_king wrote: post #5

We built LLMs so that you can express your ideas in English and no longer need to code. Also, English is really too verbose and imprecise for coding, so we developed a programming language you can use instead. Now, this gives me a business idea: are you tired of using CodeSpeak? Just explain your idea to our product in English and we'll generate CodeSpeak for you.

I'm really glad random HN commenters know it better than someone that built a language that has been used in thousands of products.

Kotlin is generally considered a bit of a dud in the modern programming language space.
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